


The Second Hand Unwinds

by potentiality_26



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bath Sex, Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Thor (2011), Pseudo-Incest, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 03:51:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: There was a Loki out there who had escaped with the Tesseract, years ago.  Thor did not know if he made these trips to find the strength to go looking for him, or the strength not to.This isn't a quest.  Thor isn't sure what itis, though.





	The Second Hand Unwinds

**Author's Note:**

> Fills my 100fandoms table prompt #26 (balm). Title from "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. Not a fix-it because I'm not sure how to fix a lot of this, but I was definitely working through some stuff. Set before Thor's final scene with the Guardians of the Galaxy characters, I guess, but the continuity's a bit wonky. Enjoy?

Thor borrowed their time machine.  More than once. 

Even with Pym particles readily available again, the indiscriminate use of the technology was something that- after all was said and done- the Avengers, such as they were now, had every reason to discourage.  But Banner at least seemed to agree that they still owed Thor something, so in the end no one tried too hard to stop him.

Probably there was nothing very odd about which time and place he gravitated to.  Here, before everything began to go wrong, his father was alive, his mother was alive, Asgard and its people stood unbowed.  The warriors three and the lady Sif were side by side once more.  Loki was no doubt already stewing in little resentments Thor didn't know about until it was far too late, but he was an Asgardian still in his own mind- and that was something it would take him far too much to get back.  To have everything that had happened, for good or ill, erased in that way was more bitter than sweet, and yet to see Loki walk the halls of Asgard again- alive, alive, alive- was almost enough.

All Thor wanted was to have that sight, if only for a moment- but of course he could hide from Loki no more than he could his mother.

And yet when Loki caught him lurking in a dark corner, caught his arm, he did not flinch from Loki’s gaze as he had hers.  Strange.  He would have thought that for Loki to think him the great golden prince still mattered more to him.

Loki’s head cocked to one side, his eyes glinting.  “I have often thought you would come to look like our father in time, but I didn’t expect it to happen overnight.”

Thor had taken to wearing his eye-patch again, which no doubt enhanced the effect Loki spoke of.  The patch reminded him of better days, when this place and too many of its people had been lost, but hope was as bright as ever.  He had no idea what expression Loki would read on his face.  Amusement at Loki’s little joke, which was indeed not far off the mark.  Pain at how long it had been since Loki last joked for him.

“You're not from here,” Loki said slowly.  “Or should I say you're not from _now_?”

Thor nodded.  He would not lie.

“I did not think that was in Asgardian power.”

“It is not.”  Strange, that with all of Asgard’s might that was, it was Midgardians- who had once seemed to him so insignificant- who managed this.  Loki, he thought, would in this timeline likely spend the rest of his life trying to _make_ it in his power.  Hopefully it would be a long life.

“But you're on... some kind of quest?”  

Again Thor would not lie, but he wished he could honestly agree.  For to do that he would have to know what it was he sought.  Some peace to help him face what was left to him, perhaps.  There was a Loki out there who had escaped with the Tesseract, years ago.  Thor did not know if he made these trips to find the strength to go looking for him, or the strength not to.  Instead he said nothing.

Loki’s head tilted a little further.  “You need somewhere to rest.”

“There are those who say I rested too long.”

“That is not what you’ve been doing.”  Loki’s eyes slid over his face like fingers.  And then there were Loki’s fingers in truth, gentle against his cheek, his jaw.  Thor learned into his touch without thinking.  There was no doubt that Loki noticed; acknowledgement- _interest_ \- flared in his eyes.  But acknowledgement of what, interest in what, Thor was less sure.  That he was an object of fascination to Loki at that moment he did not doubt, or even mind.

Loki’s arm dropped, and his fingers wrapped themselves around Thor’s hand.

“Come,” he said, and tugged. 

Loki led Thor, quick and unobserved, through the palace.  Thor did not know what to expect from Loki, nor did he care.  Loki’s grip on him was tight, like some blessed anchor.  All of Asgard’s glory around him once more, and Thor couldn’t take his eyes off Loki. 

Only when Loki stopped did Thor bother to check where he had taken him.  The baths, shallow pools of hot water, were empty at this time of day and after a murmured spell from Loki would remain so.  Thor had been here with Loki many times when covered in the filth of battle.  He was not so now, but he did have on his armor.  It was better suited to walking the halls of Asgard unmarked.  He could remove it now, just as easily as he put it on; he was with Loki, and Loki was at the height of his powers here, when no one yet fully understood what he was capable of.  But at first Thor did not want Loki to think he was completely without finery, and then-

Then Loki’s fingers found the buckle to remove his breastplate, and Thor could not bear to stop him.  Loki had taken Thor’s armor off him just as many times.  And on the ship, after Ragnarok-

It was best not to think about the ship anymore.

Even empty as they were, the baths of Asgard rang with the laughter of warriors in Thor’s mind.  He wished to rejoin them, but more than time and tragedy separated Thor from them now.  And yet Loki, with his odd easy silence, found a way to close that gap again and make being here as much like returning home victorious as ever.  His fingers bumped against Thor’s skin as he stripped off his armor, and all his clothes, piece by piece.  Thor had to keep his eyes level, watch his breathing, try not to groan. 

At last Loki’s fingers returned to his jaw.  “I do not mind the beard,” he said in a low voice.  He had settled very close to Thor, close enough that Thor’s belly pushed against him.  “But a trim, perhaps?”

Thor nodded.

Loki jerked his head toward the nearest pool, the steaming water within.  “Go,” he said.  “Get in.”

The heat of the water was nothing to the heat of Loki beside him, but it was as soothing as he remembered.  He was not battle sore, not anymore.  He had less tangible aches.  Loki had seen them, and Thor felt them ease- not altogether, but enough.  He sat back against the edge of the pool and after a while he felt Loki drop down behind him.  He heard the snick of a blade being set down on the stone, and then Loki moved to run first his fingers, then a comb through Thor's hair.  With another Loki in another time, Thor would joke about letting him so near with a weapon, but here and now it would feel wrong.  He did not know what else to say, however. 

“You’ve grown quiet,” Loki observed.  His legs were bare, framing Thor’s sides and disappearing into the water.  Thor wondered if _all_ of him was bare. 

It was too easy to drop his head to Loki’s knee and rest there a moment.  Loki gave a curious hum and his fingers were back, running through Thor's hair again.  This was dangerous ground.  Thor was hardly able to conceal what Loki’s nearness did to him, hardly able to care if he failed, and he had no idea what Loki’s response would be.  Would this tenderness fade into shock or mockery- or worse?  It was not learning that they shared no blood which Thor supposed might have changed things for Loki- it was a thousand other things that they had learned together.  A thousand other injuries that might scab over but never truly heal. 

Pursued by a hulking ship that carried a horrible destiny, desperate to shield his people before it hit, the nights after Ragnarok were sleepless and strangely cold.  Thor had had a reckless need in him that made it possible, at last, to drag Loki to him and kiss him hard, too used to losing Loki to let fear of rejection stop him any longer.  But Loki kissed back, and Thor never had it in him to ask if things had changed for Loki, and if so when, if he had wanted him before they lost everything.  Thor had, unbelievably, imagined that there would be time.  Time for fighting and ruling and living side by side to blunt the sharp edges of a _no_.  So now that it, in such an unexpected way, mattered... He had no idea.

And now he was thinking about the ship.  About how he could, if he wished, go there again and again until those short days had lasted a lifetime- and yet he could not bring himself to.  Why, in all the worlds that ever were, wasn’t there a Loki who would be just _his_? 

And now he was weeping against Loki’s leg, and Loki was stroking his hair and murmuring soothing nonsense.  This Loki, from so many years ago, was such a mystery to him- though he had not known it at the time.  To fathom what he must be thinking now was more than fathoming time itself.  What did it mean to him, to see Thor like this?  Was it profound?  Was it next to nothing?

“To think,” Loki murmured.  He sounded... awed.

“What?” Thor asked.

“I used to wish things affected you more deeply.”

“I thought I was too emotional,” Thor returned without thinking.  He could hardly remember, now, if Loki had yet said so to him.  “Hot headed.”  He lifted his eyes to look at Loki’s face.  His hands had gone still.

Loki smiled faintly.  “Somehow you manage both.”  His fingers remained in Thor’s hair, tight against his skull.  He grew serious.  “Did you lose some terrible battle, brother?”

“I _won_ a terrible battle- I and others.  But-”

“The cost was too high?”

“Yes.”

"Hmm.  Well.  That is what I meant, I suppose.”  Loki sounded saddened.  “You have thought too little of cost, before."  He wondered if he sounded like a king to Loki now, when he had never sounded less like one to himself.  "Whatever it was, you cannot change it now.”

“Not for myself,” Thor agreed.  But was it not noble, if he hoped to spare others that pain?  Or was it all just selfishness and pride?

“Is change what you seek?”

_I seek you,_ Thor nearly said.  But he did not know if it was even true- though it felt true, looking at Loki now.  And yet he had half convinced himself that all this was to let Loki go.  To see where it all began once more, to know it was in the past and so would always be there, but it was not for him anymore.  Like the ship, to which he so desperately wanted to return and return.  Like those brief moments when, after years of fighting, they understood each other at last. 

But it was folly; he could see that now.  He did not want to be without Loki.  Did he really imagine that, after everything Loki had done, anything could change it now?

“I don’t know what I seek,” he said, and that was certainly true.  Something of his hope had died when Thanos did, that first time, and nothing he had done since then- nothing anyone had- had resurrected it.  Loki must have understood this on some level, for he did not press him.  The moment- the silence- only lengthened, and Loki’s touch at the back of his head gentled.  All that quiet in the warmth of the room was heavy, but it was not oppressive.  No, it was sweet.  It was a much needed balm to his sadness. 

Loki was nude after all, the long pale lines of him close, so close, at Thor’s back.  And though there was a moment when Thor emerged from his melancholy enough to _notice_ , he was not aware of _doing_ anything.  But as Loki looked at him and he looked back, something in Loki’s expression shifted abruptly and his eyes flew wide.  

“Thor,” he said, urgently.

Thor opened his mouth to ask what troubled Loki, what he had done- but then Loki was moving, that body slipping into the water beside him, and then not beside him as Loki slid up to straddle his hips.  Thor’s lips crashed back to together.  Loki looked different than he did when they were together in Thor's memory, Thor did too- and yet, though they had come from different directions, it was as though their bodies remembered each other still.  Certainly there was a chance for Thor to push him off, to joke and bluster and let Loki play it as a joke in his turn.  Certainly Thor didn’t take that chance.  “Loki,” he answered after a beat too long, his hands coming up to brace Loki’s back in the water and keep him from slipping away- ever, if possible.

“I knew it,” Loki crowed.  There was nothing whatsoever mocking in his grin, however.

And there was no point in asking Loki _what_ he knew.  Thor’s arousal, growing softly from the moment Loki touched him, was now pressed unmistakably against Loki’s backside.  “ _How_ did you know?” he asked instead.  To Loki’s lifted eyebrow and pointed rock against him he amended, “ _When_ did you know, then?”

“For certain?”  His expression turned wicked, his lips finding Thor’s jaw.  “This moment.”

“Loki.”

Loki relented somewhat, drawing back just a little- just enough for Thor to see his face, the fine dark spray of his eyelashes, the shine across his lips.  “I’ve suspected since I saw you today.  The way you looked at me.  It wasn’t the comforts of Asgard you wanted, it was me.”

Thor nodded helplessly.

“Then I suppose-” Loki returned to his jaw, nipping at his chin beneath the fringe of beard before nuzzling up to his lips- “you had better have me.”

“You have no idea,” Thor whispered, wanting him intensely but afraid of what it would mean to have him again.  “What’s to come-”

“Shh.”  Loki caught his mouth at last. 

The kissing was lovely.  The heat of Loki’s body, his _lips_ , warmed Thor much more deeply than the water ever could.  Loki, unpopular with many on Asgard, was not yet so expert a kisser as he had been- or rather would be- when Thor had kissed him for the first time, but he did not need expertise, not with Thor.  He was Loki.

Thor would have happily kissed him for ages, but Loki was not always so patient as he could be.  He settled back, pushing against Thor’s cock, reaching behind himself to stroke it.  “I believe,” he said, “that there was talk of _having_ me.”

“Are you sure?” Thor asked.  What Loki meant was immediately obvious from the way he lined Thor up with the cleft of his ass and rocked against him once more.  And, some lack of experience aside, Thor doubted this Loki was any kind of virgin.  Still, just to be with Loki again- in any way- would be more than enough.  Too much, perhaps.

Loki lifted an eyebrow.  “I hope you don’t imagine it a sacrifice on my part.  Do you have any idea how much I have thought of it?  This?"  He glanced around.  "Right here?"

Looking at Loki’s expression, dark with desire and deadly serious beneath a growing smirk, what Thor imagined was that the answer was _in great detail_.  Thor shuddered again, deeper.  He remembered again coming back to Asgard, to these baths, a young warrior drenched in gore and Loki, somehow pristine after the same fight, helping him strip down as he had just now.  And back then he had wanted-  

Thor wrapped his arms tightly around Loki and kissed him anew.  Loki allowed it for a while, only squirming occasionally to remind Thor of what he really wanted, and how soon.  Eventually Thor let one of his hands drop, smoothing it over the curve of Loki’s ass, working down the crease to his hole.  A finger- _fingers_ \- easily slid inside.

Against his lips, Loki’s smile widened, knowing.

Thor elected not to say that he was familiar with this trick.  Loki was slick and open in a way Thor knew well but had never been sure whether to blame on magic or forethought.  And it was a case for _blame_ , because he desperately wanted to open Loki up for himself- but of course Loki had been right back then, there was no leisure for such a thing.  They had too little of everything- resources, privacy, time- and so on the ship it had been all about _together_ and _now_ and Thor could hardly object.  He could today- but Thor’s fingers had sunk into Loki too readily, and he wanted him too much.  So he only nodded, breathlessly.  He was pressed back against the stone, fingers slipping out of Loki and into less-sweet water.

“You can take what you need,” Loki said, leaning over him.

“Or you could give it to me,” Thor replied.  He rather liked Loki just as he was, moving on top of him, so young and lovely.  And he was sure that Loki would like it too.

And he did, judging by his slow and crooked smile.  “I could do that.”  His expression wasn’t really teasing, though it did try to be- there was something too grave in it.  But the way he moved _was_ teasing- he positioned himself lazily, reached back again to touch Thor’s cock and slide it along his crease, without letting Thor in just yet.

But Thor wasn’t too proud to beg.  “Please,” Thor said, straightaway, no waiting, no straining, no shame.

Loki said nothing, just relented in that long, idle drag and guided Thor into him.  It was just right, then, how slowly he did it, for it almost made up for all those rushed times he didn’t know about and possibly- hopefully- never would.  But maybe he could sense it, or see it in Thor’s eyes- which he held until he was fully seated on Thor’s thighs and Thor was completely sheathed in the tight heat of him.

It was only when Loki started to move at the same pace that Thor had to speak again: “I won’t last,” he warned.  “It’s been-” too long since anyone, too long since _you_. 

“Ah.”  Loki sighed, but it didn’t sound like disappointment.  And-

Oh, he knew just how to move.  Thor gripped his hips more to ground himself than to guide Loki or to help him, and after a few pointed shifts Loki made a pleased sound and bore down.  He gripped one of Thor’s hands then and guided it to his cock, bobbing between them in the water.

“Just-” he began, and didn’t finish.  Thor stroked him as he had learned Loki liked to be stroked- firmly and without particular finesse, not that finesse was something Thor found himself much capable of as Loki tightened around him, every roll of his hips bringing Thor closer to the edge.  Loki bent and kissed him, fingers tangled in his hair, groans buried in his mouth.

Thor thought he came first, but he managed- even as he fell apart underneath Loki- to carry on touching him until Loki’s cock jerked and he came too.

They carried on kissing, messily, through the aftermath.  Thor lay bonelessly against the stone of the bath.  He never wanted this to end, and Loki obligingly let Thor hold him to his chest a while longer.  Thor had no doubt that he would lose patience before long.  He always had, and the Loki Thor was remembering was surely more settled in himself than this one.

When he did finally move, Loki pressed a few kisses to Thor’s chest and slid out of the water, settling behind Thor again to fiddle with his hair as if nothing had happened.  “I do have one question,” Loki said, knife flashing at last as he started to trim. 

“Yes?” Thor asked, too relaxed to worry much about sharp blades or sharper questions, but aware that perhaps he ought to. 

Loki tugged on his hair abruptly and caught his mouth in a kiss.  “If I were to find you, _my_ version of you, right now and greet you so- would this happen?”  His eyes flickered over their bodies, pressed so close.  Thor was wrong before; it was not as if nothing had happened.  Sex perfumed the air, and Loki’s sprawl against the stone was loose, slightly pained but mostly self-satisfied. 

Thor swallowed, aware to an intensity that he had not been only moments ago, of the power he had given Loki over him.  “Yes,” he whispered. 

Loki made an approving noise but said nothing more, the quiet broken soon only by the sound of his knife.  Thor found himself curious.

“Do you know where you would find me?”

“The training yard, today.  For the next few hours, at least.”

Thor shuddered faintly at the thought.  He could just picture himself, years ago, spirits high from sparring with his friends.  It would be thrill enough to discover that Loki had been watching him fight- for it was something he did too little for Thor’s taste at this point in their lives.  If Loki pulled him into a dark hallway, into a kiss... how would he ever manage to let him go? 

And there was more, as well.  Uninterrupted, Thor would be _here_ in those few hours.  He wondered how long it had been in Loki’s mind, as it now was in his, that later today Thor might bathe with no idea what happened only hours before.   

“Will you?” Thor asked.

Loki sounded thoughtful.  “I haven’t decided yet.  But I’m glad that I could.  If I thought I had to wait, I might be tempted to follow you.”

“I would like that.”

Loki tugged again on what was left of his hair, still long but rather neater, and pulled him back to search his face.  “I think you’re lying,” he said at last.

Was he, after all this?  Thor wanted this Loki near him.  He wanted the one who escaped with the Tesseract.  He wanted any and every version of Loki he could find, so long as he did find him.  But more than any other, he wanted the one who, at the bitter end, had chosen him. 

Loki’s expression was probing.  Thor wondered why he did not ask more questions, why he did not seek all the information he could get about what was to come.  Thor was glad he did not; there were questions he did not know if he could, or should, answer- not when his presence alone would have changed things in this timeline already- but he still wondered why.  But, of course, Loki was too smart and too subtle to push for answers he already knew had been rendered meaningless.  And Loki would never believe he did not control his own fate, not even if proof otherwise was staring him in the face.   

“Not _lying_ ,” Thor demurred.  He couldn't say quite what he _was_ doing, couldn't try to put it in words without dangerously piquing Loki’s curiosity.  He _would_ ask questions eventually. 

Loki lifted an eyebrow, but eventually was satisfied.  His fingers, threading back into Thor’s hair, were gentle along his scalp.  “Why do you not go where you most want to go?” he asked.

A dozen possible reasons offered themselves up for consideration- among them that he was not strong enough to fix what needed fixing, nor yet deserving enough to win back what he had lost.  That even if he could, he would only be robbing some other version of himself.  That it wasn’t fair to have only these choices, and he was afraid if he faced it head on he would not only weep but sob like a child and never stop.  He picked the best answer he could: “Because I don’t know if it’s where I should be.”  He kept hoping that some other, better path existed.  That he could find it if he was only brave enough to look.  

Loki nodded slowly.  “There’s time to decide.” 

Thor nodded in turn; there was time for everything, in a sense- all the time in the world.  And that would have to be enough for now. 


End file.
